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What will be the outcome within the hobby with all this PSA, BGS, PWCC/consignor fraud?

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sportscardtheory

Active member
Aug 16, 2008
8,461
2
Buffalo, New York
I know some people want to downplay it, but they're wrong in doing so. This is big. There is huge scale fraud being perpetrated here. Millions upon millions are being spent on cards clearly being misrepresented by third party grading companies claiming expertise in fraud prevention. And I'm guessing many will want retribution or compensation. I have already noticed a downturn in sales of graded cards in the last few months and it's starting to worry me about graded cards I own. So how bad will this get, now that trust in TPG's has been essentially destroyed?
 

sportscardtheory

Active member
Aug 16, 2008
8,461
2
Buffalo, New York
The most crazy part is how PWCC is misrepresenting specific consignment listings of theirs so their secret buyer can win the card at more cheaply auction, alter it, get a bump from PSA or BGS and make thousands after selling the same card again through PWCC. PWCC may have profited/pocketed $21,289.88 on one card alone by doing this. And they have most likely done this and things like this thousands upon thousands of times. This is fraud.
 
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sportscardtheory

Active member
Aug 16, 2008
8,461
2
Buffalo, New York
On every other trading card message board, almost all anyone is talking about is this grading/consignor scandal. Why is it here on FCB we can't get two people to discuss it.
 

Brewer Andy

Active member
Aug 10, 2008
9,634
21
I could be wrong but for some time now it’s felt as though FCBs membership leans much more toward nostalgic team/player collectors with a rather romantic style of collecting. Not to say we don’t have prospectors and the like because we do but there’s just not a big base here that is directly impacted by the high roller sales most of this garbage centers around. Do I hope people get charged with crimes for this bull crap? Absolutely. Is it bad for the hobby? Absolutely. But I have never and never will be in the market for a $1K plus card so it’s not really in the same universe I live in. I applaud those doing the work to expose this for sure because it is a hobby I love though I mostly sitting here on the sidelines with my mouth hanging open with not much to say lol


Sent from my iPhone using Freedom Card Board mobile app
 

banjar

Well-known member
Mar 22, 2015
2,540
883
Lafayette, Colorado
I just got back from a 4-cup-of-coffee read through the latest hobby fraud thread on BO, which is pushing 300 posts in less than 18 hours. Here on FCB the entire board has 16 posts in almost 24 hours. I really like this board and most of its members, but I wonder what is happening here.

About the scandals though. On one hand I am not surprised that fraudulent people are engaging in fraud when there is good money to be made doing so. But on the other hand, seeing how widespread it is, and reading the all the specifics of it, is still an eye opener. Selfishly, I am glad that I don't buy vintage or ultra-high-end cards, and I don't give a damn about grading or graded cards. So I'm not really affected too much by these people and their scams. But a lot of people are, and it sucks.

One thing that is affecting me is shill bidding on ebay auctions. Is it just me or is this becoming more rampant than ever?

It's gotten to the point that whenever I'm outbid, the first thing I do is look at the bid history and see if the high bidder looks like a shill. I already retracted one bid today on an auction that was probably being shilled, and it looks like another d-bag is trying the same thing on another auction (which is only at $9 freaking dollars). For the second auction, I sent this email to the seller, but no response so far:

"Hello, I am the second bidder on this item. I just looked at the bid history, and it looks very much like the pattern I see when an item is being shill bid by the seller or one of their associates. Is that the case here?"

This is the item - a measley 2019 Prizm snake skin parallel.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/312636338014?ul_noapp=true
 

rebelpawn

Active member
Aug 7, 2008
2,666
10
La Jolla. CA
I could be wrong but for some time now it’s felt as though FCBs membership leans much more toward nostalgic team/player collectors with a rather romantic style of collecting. Not to say we don’t have prospectors and the like because we do but there’s just not a big base here that is directly impacted by the high roller sales most of this garbage centers around. Do I hope people get charged with crimes for this bull crap? Absolutely. Is it bad for the hobby? Absolutely. But I have never and never will be in the market for a $1K plus card so it’s not really in the same universe I live in. I applaud those doing the work to expose this for sure because it is a hobby I love though I mostly sitting here on the sidelines with my mouth hanging open with not much to say lol


Sent from my iPhone using Freedom Card Board mobile app

100% agree Andy. Perfectly put
 

banjar

Well-known member
Mar 22, 2015
2,540
883
Lafayette, Colorado
I agree, well said.

I could be wrong but for some time now it’s felt as though FCBs membership leans much more toward nostalgic team/player collectors with a rather romantic style of collecting. Not to say we don’t have prospectors and the like because we do but there’s just not a big base here that is directly impacted by the high roller sales most of this garbage centers around. Do I hope people get charged with crimes for this bull crap? Absolutely. Is it bad for the hobby? Absolutely. But I have never and never will be in the market for a $1K plus card so it’s not really in the same universe I live in. I applaud those doing the work to expose this for sure because it is a hobby I love though I mostly sitting here on the sidelines with my mouth hanging open with not much to say lol


Sent from my iPhone using Freedom Card Board mobile app
 

phillyfan0417

Well-known member
Administrator
Aug 7, 2008
43,551
43
Greenfield, Wisconsin, United States
On every other trading card message board, almost all anyone is talking about is this grading/consignor scandal. Why is it here on FCB we can't get two people to discuss it.

Why does this matter? The major conversation and work is being done on BO and that is where the focus of the conversation is.

I've been following the thread on BO and it's very sad for the hobby.

I've seen quite a few of our members participating in that thread.
 

Gjb70

Member
Aug 1, 2015
661
0
I’m glad to see this brought up on here. I read BO too, but it usually wears me out. Even though there’s not as much traffic here, I find the members here much more reasonable and appreciate what they say. I’m glad to see it discussed, because it’s been something I’ve been thinking a lot about. Most of my graded cards are my lower grade mantle collection and rookie cards, which I always planned on keeping and passing down to my son. I never bought into grading as far as high end goes thankfully. I always buy vintage that are PSA graded with lower grades, mainly because I though it was better from an authenticity perspective. I’d rather buy a low grade than a raw for the same price because I always thought there was less of a chance it e-card was fake or altered. Now I’m questioning everything and it makes me wonder what kind of impact it will have on the hobby overall.


Sent from my iPhone using Freedom Card Board
 

finestkind

Well-known member
Aug 17, 2008
3,986
901
Massachusetts
It's great to see the people on BO doing such amazing work on this. I could never afford the kind of cards being tampered with. It took years for Bill Mastro to get busted for his sport hobby fraud. PWCC got caught. Now they say they are working with law enforcement. Ha !

There's a lot of talk going on about this on the http://net54baseball.com/ forum too.
 
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Austin

Well-known member
Aug 7, 2008
5,706
41
Dallas, Texas
Hasn’t PSA been incorrectly grading altered cards since the very beginning when they gave the infamously trimmed Gretzky T206 Honus Wagner a Near Mint 8? And that card from crook Bill Mastro is still sold in its original phony-graded slab for record amounts.

Investors don’t care. If an expensive and rare card is encapsulated by “experts,” it’s sold for a ridiculous premium.
Just like when Project Bullpen revealed that tens of thousands of famous autographs, even those “authenticated” by PSA/DNA and James Spence, are forgeries. The scandal didn’t affect prices because investors don’t care.

There’s a major sportscard scandal every couple of years and nothing ever happens. Crooks are arrested, but collectors and investors quickly forget and prices keep going up. This current disgusting scandal will be no different in a few months.
 

chris19978

Active member
Aug 30, 2011
978
25
The question is who is doing it the initial buyer or PWCC. Didn't someone show how you can gain a 16th of an inch by laying books on it? It's shady but as the one showed PSA then SGC the fact it didn't go to the same grader means maybe they will have it tracked for at least the numbered cards to prevent this.
 

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